Tuesday, June 14, 2011

"There are major discrepancies between all the series, and in crafting COnspiracy of the Planet of the Apes I had to take a creative approach to make all these things make sense. In the third movie, Escape, Dr. Hasslien compared time to an infinite highway with infinite lanes, if you change lanes you could change your future.

I have come to the conclusion that the cartoon and television series, as well as some of the comic’ continuity, are in fact different lanes of the same highway. This explains how the cartoon has Corneilus, Zira, and Zaius in a world where the apes have technology, but that is clearly not the case in the feature films. It is my hypothesis, and the foundation of this novel series, that all the astronauts started off in the same lane on that highway, but as they made it to the future, they wound up getting off on different exit ramps. This also explains how each of the astronauts from the different sources are shocked to find out that the future is run by apes, but some of their missions left after Zira and Cornelius return to 1973 and say as much. I have used this idea to create a few interesting characters inspired by the other sources and incorporate them into Taylor and Landon’s timeline, so that they are “this lane’s” version of that character." - Drew G.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Everyone knows that the command capsule is the only part of the the Liberty (formerly the Icarus, formerly Air Force One) that has ever been shown in an official capacity in Planet of the Apes film and merchandizing. In designing the full ship for Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes, Author Drew Gaska sought out starship designer extraordinaire Andrew Probert. To the left is a glimpse at his painting in the book, just a little bit of a tease to whet your appetite for the full reveal this July 25th when the book hits stores nationwide. Not only is there a double page spread of Probert's gorgeous painting of the Liberty in action, but also the book's end papers have been designed to look like "blueprints" based off of Gaska's notes and Probert's design for the ship.

ABOUT ANDREW PROBERT:

Andrew Probert’s artistic career spans over thirty years, ten of which were spent working on some of science-fiction fans’ favorite Hollywood productions.

He began on the small screen, designing the robotic Cylons for the original “Battlestar: Galactica”, moving on to the big screen as a major design contributor for “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”, working to update the overall look of Starfleet ships & hardware.

This led to a number of television and feature-film projects, including “Airwolf”, “Streethawk”, and “Back to the Future”. In 1987, Probert’s last Hollywood project proved to be the one for which he is most well known: “Star Trek: The Next Generation”. As the show’s Senior Illustrator, he designed the Enterprise bridge, battle-bridge, and provided concepts for the remaining sets & other hardware, while designing the exteriors of the Ferengi Marauder, Romulan Warbird, and Enterprise-D spaceships.

In 1989, Probert joined Walt Disney Imagineering, designing various themepark rides & attractions. Years later, he entered the video game industry working with Spectrum Holobyte, Sega, and recently, Perpetual Entertainment.

Andrew is currently involved in producing paintings and an occasional book cover.

Get a look at the three stages of Jim Steranko's cover for the Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes Illustrated Novel, from pencils (bottom) to the poster image (middle) to the tweaked final for the book (top).